Arrangements for loading and unloading articles such as glass sheets between conveyor systems typically are expensive and complex. Generally, an overhead transport arrangement is employed to transfer the articles between the unloading and loading stations. For example, a mechanical gripper engages one or more articles at the unloading station; transports same in a first direction, typically upward, to clear the conveyor, or other mechanisms. The overhead transport then delivers the articles by horizontal travel to a location over the loading station, and transport the articles in a second direction, typically downward, into another conveyor at the loading station. Significant overhead structure sufficient to span both stations, is required in this conventional arrangement.
In other bending, cutting or grinding operations for glass panes, the panes are transferred from a horizontal conveyor with a transfer device that shifts the panes vertically, seizing them on the intake conveyor, lifting them, then releasing and/or bringing them down anew, and laying them on a form which meanwhile was installed beneath the transfer device.
These transfer devices exhibit the inconvenience of adding to a gravity effect. The added effect intervenes with the transfer of the glass pane. An inertia effect takes place because of the difficulty in transferring the glass pane by placing it delicately without making it fall.